HIGH SCHOOL BOYS BASKETBALL: Hun takes down Irish

LAWRENCE — The Hun School boys basketball team claimed not to be doing anything special defensively against Notre Dame High last night, but what the Raiders accomplished was rather special.

After falling behind the area’s top team by 13 points at halftime, the Raiders turned the game completely around in the second half to come away with a shocking 65-52 victory.

The shock value came because the Irish had surged to a 35-22 halftime lead before Hun came out and outscored the home team, which had only lost one other time this season, 43-17, in the second half.

“The game plan was to stop them in transition and keep them off the glass,” Raiders postgraduate forward Jake Newman said. “We didn’t really do that at all in the first half. There was a stretch where they had three dunks. So coach (Jonathan) Stone fired us up a little bit at halftime to get us going. We stuck to the game plan. We shared the ball more. In the second half, we made the extra pass to get the open look.”

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With a high-flying front line like Notre Dame has, the Raiders took advantage with two and sometimes three passes to get uncontested layups.

The Irish had opened a 37-26 lead when Fergus Duke hit a 3-point field goal with 5:37 left in the third quarter. Little did anyone realize that would be the start of a 25-3 run which would continue until Josh Williams hit a foul-line jump shot with 5:08 remaining in the game.

“We weren’t doing what we were supposed to do,” said Williams, who led all scorers with 17 points. “We came out in the first half with intensity. In the second half, we just stopped. Probably because we weren’t passing the ball around like we did in the first half. We weren’t doing anything the same.”

When Hashim Moore (16 points) scored on a left-handed drive with 3:05 left in the third quarter, Hun closed to 40-39. A minute later, Duke led Moore with a no-look pass to give the visitors a 41-40 lead.

The surge grew to a 23-5 run by the end of the third quarter as Hun took a 45-40 edge, but by playing man-to-man and an occasional matchup zone, the Raiders never allowed the Irish to get back into their running game.

“Usually we come out bad in the first half, then in the second half we come out strong,” Williams said. “I guess it reversed this time. We can’t have that.”

Notre Dame closed to eight points (55-47) with three minutes left in the fourth quarter, but could not get a stretch run going.

“We have the MAPL championships coming up (Next weekend at Peddie), so this will give us a push,” said Newman, a Vancouver, Canada native who scored all nine of his points in the second half. “I think this will bring us together.”

The Irish are hoping for the same from the loss as they head into its second showdown with Trenton at Tornado Alley at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.